Sunday, October 19, 2008

Living Room Camera

Zoom, Truck, Tilt, and Dolly
Now Pedestal and Pan
Silence in the studio
For the dancing camera man.

Midway through the semester, the Introduction to Broadcasting course switched gears and the focus went from audio to video. I remember a few people later commenting that they “liked the radio portion” of the course better “than the television.” This was sort of a misnomer, as that part of the class really didn’t focus on “radio” more than it did on “audio.” The idea, of course, was to use the lessons learned from audio production and apply them to video production. As Propel noted, “Unless you’re going into silent film, then the audio portion of the class was a waste.” Typical Propel humor.

Then, too, the discussion changed in our hands-on lab course...though I just noticed, all these years later, that the class maintained the name “Radio Workshop” even though we now met in Studio 3.

Ah, Studio 3 – such an appropriate name. You’re familiar with the comparative list “good, better, best” I’m sure. Studio 3 in the Communication Building would be the “good” of this list, though the loosest sense of the word “good” and the epitome of “third best.” I don’t know if it had been built for anything other than a training area because it was too small and too under equipped to serve in any other role. When we walked in the first time I was amazed at just how little there was: two studio cameras in the center of the room, a semi-circle of chairs around one wall, a small table that held the light controls, and decorative squares of soundproofing. Master Control for Studio 3 was in an adjoining room and was just as a sparse – some rudimentary machinery and a few more of that hard plastic swivel chairs similar to the ten or twelve in the studio.


Learning how to move the camera was the obvious lesson. To that end, our off-the-wall instructor had taken the time to put together a game in the studio that looked similar to dance steps one finds on the floor or a flowchart. I don’t know if this was something he prepared for earlier this semester or if it was a holdover from previous years, but I quickly got the impression it was not something new.

The rules were simple: there were between 40 and 50 circles fastened to the floor. One circle was green and this was where the student operating the camera would start. Another student, acting as director, sat in the control room and instructed your next move. The goal was to get the camera to one of the red squares on the floor. That seemed easy enough except Dr. Propel had changed four of the circles from white to yellow and you had to maneuver the camera to each of these four circles before you could touch a square (the yellow circles were interchangeable such that every student had a different path each time he or she played the “game”).

The instructions given by the director were either “to dolly” or “to truck” the camera.
  • To truck” the camera meant moving the camera tripod or pedestal to the left or to the right. The camera mounted to the tripod or pedestal does not move. The instruction “truck 1 to the right” would take the camera from Circle 1 to Circle 2 on the graphic.
  • To dolly” the camera meant moving the tripod or pedestal forward or backward. Like trucking, the camera itself does not move. The instruction “dolly in 2” would take the camera from Circle 2 to Circle 3 on the graphic.
Dr. Propel wholeheartedly supported erroneous instructions such as “truck out 4 spaces” or “dolly left 2 spaces” to see who was paying attention.


What instruction was given to get the user from Circle 3 to Circle A?

At the yellow circle (Circle A) Dr. Propel took over with the instruction:
  • Pan: the horizontal left-and-right movement of the camera; the motion was comparable to someone shaking their head “no.” The tripod or camera mount remained motionless.
  • Tilt: the vertical up-and-down movement of the camera; the motion was comparable to someone nodding their head “yes.” The camera mount also remained motionless.
  • Pedestal: the vertical up-and-down movement of the camera tripod; the motion was comparable to someone standing on tip-toe whilst looking straight ahead.
  • This leaves zoom, a control on the camera itself that allowed us to “zoom in” to obtain a closer view of something or “zoom out” to obtain a wider, more distant view.
So at Circle A Dr. Propel might say, “Pan right and zoom in on the picture of the man running.” We would then swivel the camera to the right – making sure to not move the tripod – and then zoom in on a picture Dr. Propel had taped to the wall. “Now, tilt up and get a shot of the ceiling.” That was easy. “Now pan down and zoom in on one of your classmates.” Okay, so...wait – you can’t ‘pan down.’ So we were paying attention...we were passing the test.

So the student director trucked and dollied the camera operator to another yellow circle where again Dr. Propel would bark through a series of orders. The idea was to give the instructions and make the movements as quickly as possible, as if we were shooting an action scene of some sort.

It made for some interesting classes at first, but, as one could imagine, it got old fast – especially when we all expected Propel’s incorrect instruction and moreso his giddy laugh when we were on to him.

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Camera
(Jerry DiRienzo)
Cell
From the album Living Room
1994